Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/288

CUPPLES 266 CURRIE Cupple., George (1815-1895) George Cupples was born in Berwickshire, Scotland, October 13, 1815, and died in San Antonio, Texas, April 19, 1895. He was the son of Robert Cupples, surgeon in the Royal Navy. Educated liberally in his native coun- try, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and later in Paris. In 1836 he saw service in Spain for two years. In 1843 he emigrated to Texas and soon after his arrival in that State settled in San Antonio, where he became a distinguished pioneer prac- titioner, especially in surgery. During the war with Mexico he was surgeon in the Amer- ican army. In the civil war he was medical director, in the trans-Mississippi department, of all cavalry in the service of the Confederate government. He was a founder and first president of the Texas Medical Association in 1853 and also served as president in 1878. He was one of the first men in this country to establish (in 1878) a state board of examiners for the licensing of physicians. In 1877 he began an exhaustive statistical inquiry into the results of Texas surgery and showed by his published results that "as good surgery could be done in Texas with a carpenter's saw and Bowie knife as was done in London with the most approved appurtenances," thus answering effectively the slurring question, as applying to Texas, put by a writer of that period in the London Lancet, "What good can come out of Nazareth?" His address as presi- dent of the Texas Medical Association in 1853 was redolent of advanced thought in medicine and showed him far ahead of his times. He had then a conception of what the exigency of public health demanded such as might do credit to the modern sanitarian. For instance, he was a sturdy champion of compulsory vaccination. In his address of 1853 he said, "I would propose to the Asso- ciation as a legitimate and laudable object of their endeavors the passage of a law by our legislature, rendering vaccination obligatory on all, and making its neglect punishable by fine. I am well aware that many difficulties and much opposition would have to be over- come before this desirable end could be at- tained. The boasted liberty of this country, in this instance ill-understood, renders legis- lation on this subject difficult of attainment. These difficulties and this opposition can only be surmounted by the enlightenment of the people on this momentous question, and this is the duty and the province of the Associa- tion." Again, in that same remarkable paper, addressing himself to the subject of medical education, he said, "On the proper prepara- tion of the public mind for the consideration of this great subject will depend the organiza- tion of the medical schools of our universi- ties; by the action and the influence of the medical men of this country from this time forward will it be decided whether the schools of medicine shall be worthy of the name, affording in their organization, their opera- tion and their requirements, proof that Texas desires to make as rapid progress in intel- lectual as in political and commercial develop- ment, or whether she will be content with tame copies of the miscalled universities of too many states, notably of the West and South, where a nominal curriculum of one or two years, and a mockery of examination by the very professors whose pecuniary in- terest and natural self-love incline them to indulgence, entitle students to receive honors and degrees." All this, and much else of like tenor, from the State of Texas in 1853 and out of the lips of a man of great wisdom and prescience ! Dr. Cupples was a handsome man, of patrician mien, of cultivated manners and of knightly conduct in all the relations of life. G. Alder Blumer. Transactions of Texas State Medical Association, 1895. Texas State Journal of Medicine, May, 1918. Currie, Donald Herbert (1876-1918) Donald Herbert Currie, sanitarian, was born in Jefferson County, Missouri, March 25, 1876, son of Daniel McNeil Currie and Martha Dent. His early education was had at the High School and the Manual Training School • of St. Louis, and he graduated in medicine at the Washington University, St. Louis, in 1897. In 1899 he entered the United States Public Health Service as an assistant surgeon, was promoted to the grade of passed assistant surgeon in 1904 and to the grade of surgeon in 1912. He was stationed at the Hygienic Laboratory, Washington, 1900-01 ; served in the plague epidemic in San Francisco in 1901- 05, and in the yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans in 1905. He was best known for his work in con- nection with leprosy, in which field he rendered eminent service. He had two tours of duty in Hawaii, the first from 1909 to 1912 and in 1915 and 1916 he served as director of the Molokai Leprosy Investigation Station. By his sound common sense, scientUic knowl- edge and attainments he frequently had occa- sion to disprove spurious claims in connection with the treatment of the disease and the biology of the leprosy organism. Between the tours of duty in the Hawaiian Islands he